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It cannot be denied that France hailed, almost with unanimous voice, Bonaparte's accession to the Consulship as a blessing of Providence. I do not speak now of the ulterior consequences of that event; I speak only of the fact itself, and its first results, such as the repeal of the law of hostages, and the compulsory loan of a hundred millions.
The matter was brought up in Parliament in 1822, and two successive committees were appointed to investigate the questions involved. As a result, a thoroughgoing repeal law was passed in 1824, but this in turn was almost immediately repealed, and another substituted for it in 1825, a great series of strikes having impressed the legislature with the belief that the former had gone too far.
Whether it was that he thought Repeal would not be granted, or that the concession of some measures of substantial benefit, besides being good in themselves, would strengthen his hands to carry Repeal; or that he feared the people might be driven into a hopeless rebellion, entailing disaster upon the country; or that his high spirit was subdued by his late imprisonment, or his intellect impaired by the incipient inroads of that malady of which he died within a year; or from all those causes combined, O'Connell did not by any means turn a deaf ear to the overtures of the Whigs.
"It is not cancelling a piece of parchment," he insisted, "that can win back America: you must respect her fears and her resentments." The bill which he introduced in concert with Franklin provided for the repeal of the late Acts and for the security of the colonial charters, abandoned the claim of taxation, and ordered the recall of the troops.
It was moved, seconded, and unanimously carried, that the attempt to repeal the Act be made at the earliest opportunity. The question next considered was, What is the best means to adopt to make success certain? "I suppose you will employ the Dodger?" said Bottlesby. "He is a whole host in himself, and though he values his services rather highly, it will pay in the end to employ him."
On the article of religion this monarch had taken his resolution once forever; urgent necessity might, perhaps, have constrained him temporarily to suspend the execution of the penal statutes, but never, formally, to repeal them entirely, or even to modify them.
If we, relying on the self-consistency of the executive, and because we relied on that self-consistency, predicted a particular solution for the nodus of Repeal, which solution has now become impossible; presuming a perseverance in the original policy of ministers, now that its natural fruits were rapidly ripening whereas, after all, at the eleventh hour we find them adopting that course which, with stronger temptation, they had refused to adopt in the first hour were this the true portrait of the case, would it be ourselves that erred, or Government? ourselves in counting on steadiness, or Government in acting with caprice?
All these conditions differ in different parts of the world." After eighteen years' hard struggle, the British Abolitionists succeeded in getting Parliament to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts in force in certain military stations in England, and in force in other parts of the British Empire.
But in England generally the question was regarded as settled, while in America the news of the repeal had been received with universal joy, and taken as a close of the strife. On both sides however there remained a pride and irritability which only wise handling could have allayed; and in the present state of English politics wise handling was impossible.
Whatever may be our own differences of opinion concerning this much debated measure, its meaning is not debated outside the United States. Everywhere else the language of the treaty is given but one interpretation, and that interpretation precludes the exemption I am asking you to repeal.
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